Can't find any cell by value in Excel

[leo-rodriguez-simspace]

Short summary
I'm trying to reproduce the demo shown in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOySrifVclw
But even selecting a single cell searching by value is not working for me in Mac nor Win 10
Should I somehow configure Excel to enable this functionality?

Desired execution environment / tested on

• [ * ] Virtual machine
• Docker container
• [ * ] Dev/Host system

node version:
Node 18 (Mac)
Node 20 (Win 10)

OS type and version:
Mac (host) and windows 10 (virtual machine)

Full code sample related to question

import {
    useConsoleLogger,
    ConsoleLogLevel,
    screen,
    windowWithTitle,
} from "@nut-tree/nut-js";
import {useBolt, useBoltWindowFinder} from "@nut-tree/bolt";
import "@nut-tree/element-inspector";
import {elements, windowElementDescribedBy} from "@nut-tree/element-inspector/macos";

useConsoleLogger({logLevel: ConsoleLogLevel.DEBUG});
useBolt();
useBoltWindowFinder();

const excel = await screen.find(windowWithTitle(/Book1/));
await excel.focus();


const elem = await excel.find(windowElementDescribedBy({value: "what"}));
console.log(JSON.stringify(elem, null, 2));
screen.highlight(elem.region);

Detailed question
I'm trying to reproduce the demo shown in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOySrifVclw
But even selecting a single cell searching by value is not working in Mac nor Win 10:

at Window.find (/Users/leonardo.rodriguez/dev/nutjs-eval/node_modules/@nut-tree/nut-js/dist/lib/window.class.js:111:27)
    at async file:///Users/leonardo.rodriguez/dev/nutjs-eval/excel.mjs:27:14
node:internal/process/esm_loader:97
    internalBinding('errors').triggerUncaughtException(
                              ^

Error: 2025-06-10T02:15:22.506Z - ERROR - [nut.js] - Error: Searching for window-element-described-by-{"value":"what"} failed. Reason: 'Error: No element matching description {
  "value": "what"
}
 found!'

And it looks like getElements() is not returning any TextArea as shown in the video, probably
not all cells are being added to the dom-like structure. Should I somehow configure Excel to allow this?

[s1hofmann]

Hi @leo-rodriguez-simspace 👋

Excel should support this out of the box.

Can you give this snippet a try, which I verified on my Windows box (start the script and focus excel manually):

import { getActiveWindow, sleep } from "@nut-tree/nut-js"
import "@nut-tree/element-inspector"
import { elements } from "@nut-tree/element-inspector/win"

await sleep(3000);
const excel = await getActiveWindow();
await excel.focus();
const e = await excel.getElements();
console.log(JSON.stringify(e, null, 2));

const cells = await excel.find(elements.dataItem({value: "Item 1"}))
console.log(JSON.stringify(cells, null, 2));

[leo-rodriguez-simspace]

@s1hofmann Hi,I still get

C:\Users\vagrant\nutjs-eval\node_modules\@nut-tree\nut-js\dist\lib\window.class.js:111
            const error = new Error(`Searching for ${needle.id} failed. Reason: '${e}'`);
                          ^

Error: [nut.js] - Error: Searching for dataItem-element-described-by-{"value":"Item 1","type":"DataItem"} failed. Reason: 'Error: No element matching description {
  "type": "DataItem"
  "value": "Item 1"
}

what version of nutjs are you using, I have 4.7.0

[s1hofmann]

Hi @leo-rodriguez-simspace 👋

just to make sure: Is there an element called Item 1 in your table? Since you’re using my exact snippet I just want to make sure you have a corresponding table.

Does the call to getElements() still return an empty array?

Best regards

Simon

[leo-rodriguez-simspace]

Hi @s1hofmann, I have a cell with 'Item 1', does it need to be a table or can it be just a cell? getElements() returns a lot of items but no TextArea as in the video, or any other item containing cell values. It looks like cells are not added to the dom-like tree.

[s1hofmann]

Hi @leo-rodriguez-simspace 👋

It should be a cell with this value.
And it won’t be a TextArea Windows, since the elements are different on each platform.
On Windows it should be a DataItem